NMCG Conference 2009 Report

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Report of the NGO-Military Contact Group Conference: Stabilisation and civil-military relations in humanitarian response Locarno Rooms, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 29 January 2009 The NGO-Military Contact Group (NMCG) The NMCG aims to improve and strengthen the communication between UK Armed Forces, government and non-government aid organisations. The Group’s role is to facilitate information sharing, learning and dialogue on relevant policy, technical and operational issues concerning civil-military relations in humanitarian response. It is composed of representatives from NGOs, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the UK Armed Forces, MOD, DFID, FCO and a number of independent practitioners. It is convened and chaired by the British Red Cross.

Background to the Conference In recent years the growing number of multi-agency interventions, most notably the UK’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, have rendered civil-military relations increasingly complicated. Taking place in extremely complex contexts and with the aim of reconstructing or stabilising very fragile states, and often referred to as combining the “three D’s” of Defence, Development and Diplomacy, these operations are at an all-time high and appear likely to expand in the immediate to mid-term future. The UN and regional organisations (NATO, the EU, the AU) remain involved in post-Cold War stabilisation operations such as the Balkans and Liberia, and international stabilisation intervention already is, or may soon be, a major element in responding to conflicts in fragile states such as Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, and Somalia.

The aims of stabilisation are explicitly political: to help establish and sustain a legitimate government. In this model, stability can only be achieved by a political settlement between local actors and requires leadership from the diplomatic and development communities to support political processes and help the state fulfil its functions. Military contributions may be required to provide the essential security to allow other actors to operate. Some speakers expressed the view that conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have challenged a military structure optimised to fight the Cold War and led to new investment in technical capacity for reconstruction or other development-type activities.

For the UK, this realisation has led to an increased emphasis on joined-up government responses or a “comprehensive approach”; a common understanding of the problem, a common vision and strategy, clear division of responsibilities for delivering strategy, joint training and integrated reporting, monitoring and learning. The development of the Stabilisation Unit, a joint venture between DFID, the FCO and the MOD, is key in enabling this approach.

This NMCG Conference sought to enhance awareness of the practical challenges of stabilisation operations and the need to adapt to rapidly changing environments, and to share lessons from operational practice. It reflected the evolving nature of the NMCG and its dialogue - multiple, contrasting voices, at times in opposition along civil-military lines, at others reflecting a wider debate between the governmental and non-governmental sectors -

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but always seeking common ground, increased mutual understanding and proposing practical solutions.

The Conference was co-hosted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the British Red Cross on behalf of the NMCG, and attended by over one hundred people, approximately equally divided between the humanitarian aid sector, UK government (DFID, FCO and MOD) and UK armed forces. The meeting was conducted under the Chatham House rule.

Key issues raised by the Conference The day was structured around three panel sessions (mission integration; stabilisation and the protection of civilians; and the role of the military in providing assistance) with an opportunity for comment and questions from the floor following presentations. The final session asked the panel Chairs to reflect on the key issues raised during the day.

Discussions touched on issues related to diplomacy, intervention policy, humanitarian affairs, military doctrine and the core areas of stabilisation. The following four issues emerged as amongst the most important: The impact of stabilisation operations on principled humanitarian action Stabilisation is an inherently political process, uniting state building, development and military activities, whereas in principle, humanitarian assistance is apolitical and provided on the basis of need alone.

This requires ‘Dunantist’ humanitarian agencies (who adhere strictly to the principles of neutral, impartial and independent humanitarian action) to maintain a clear separation from any political agenda. This however can be challenging in practice, as many agencies are “multi-mandate” and undertake humanitarian and development work simultaneously, not least because many funding streams are only available for development and stabilisationrelated activities. As development means engaging with political issues such as governance and democratisation, this can jeopardise the perception of agencies’ neutrality by other groups and by local communities.

One of the most fiercely contested issues of the day was whether assistance, and therefore aid agencies, could be part of the stabilisation ‘toolbox’. Broadly, proponents of Stabilisation argued that greater integration of objectives, joint training and familiarisation and advancement in military capacity and technical skill around aid provision can enhance delivery on stabilisation objectives. Humanitarian organisations, conversely, argued that there needs to be a clear difference between political, security and development objectives, and those which are purely humanitarian. In this view, progress would not be greater integration between humanitarian and development/stabilisation organisations and agendas, but rather clearer separation.

Whilst this discussion can sometimes seem quite ideological, there are very practical issues to settle relating to how humanitarian organisations and NGOs engage with an integrated approach in a context like Afghanistan. It was acknowledged by many that blurring the lines between political and humanitarian objectives could have negative implications for the acceptance of humanitarian actors, with real consequences for humanitarian access.

Further, local perception of agencies as stabilisation actors could have security implications

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for aid organisations and beneficiary communities; in Afghanistan, where most NGOs are focused principally on reconstruction, development and advocacy or solidarity issues, their perceived alignment with ISAF, the NATO-led international security and development force, has allowed opposition forces to label humanitarian organisations as legitimate targets.

Even where humanitarian programming alone is at issue, the degree to which agencies should share their assessments, feedback on the impact of stabilisation operations, share information, meet with officials from foreign governments and work in a ‘joined-up’ fashion can be controversial. Working closely with the host government and civil society can link agencies with development and stabilisation operations working to legitimise the government. World Vision International, confronted with these challenges, has developed a tool to help decision makers strike a balance between humanitarian principles and pragmatism when determining how to engage with military forces.

The asymmetric nature of resources was another practical issue; in Afghanistan, it was reported that the lone UN civil-military officer has 44 ISAF counterparts. Agencies present identified only two dedicated civil-military NGO positions globally (one in the US NGO umbrella group InterAction and the other on a six month contract in Chad).

Protection of civilians in stabilisation operations Humanitarian and stabilisation agendas overlap in protection, where humanitarian actors, diplomats and the military have very different approaches, making clarity on objectives and capacity vital, in particular as there are elements of protection that humanitarian actors simply cannot provide. All actors have limited resources with which to deliver on often ambitious and complex mandates and responsibilities, which may play out in unexpected ways.

Stabilisation operations include protection of civilians as an explicit aim, but usually involve an element of combat, and as the Conference was told, ‘one person’s stabilisation is another person’s war’. Conflict can become a self-perpetuating, deepening cycle, increasing the threat to civilians, as was illustrated in Chad, one of the contexts discussed at the Conference.

Several speakers argued that military engagement in development can have unintended consequences for communities, with direct implications for the protection of civilians. For example, opposition forces sometimes target members of the local community working on stabilisation projects run and funded by the military.

This is not to suggest that the military cannot provide support to ‘humanitarian’ activities, for example, with logistics, or impartial medical care. In some circumstances it is valid for military actors to provide assistance, and in others they have an obligation to do so under international humanitarian law. However, participants acknowledged that there needs to be a better dialogue on the determinants of security - what keeps people safe - and in particular how stabilisation operations take the protection needs of civilians into account.

There was a recognition that greater attention must be paid to rule of law, governance structures and security, which should be the “centre of gravity” for the stabilisation agenda – this reflects new UK government thinking and is corroborated by a recent study by the British Afghanistan Agencies Group (BAAG), focussing on Afghan perceptions of security. On

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several occasions, the role of the police and civil service in extending the state’s influence and ultimately guaranteeing the rule of law was mentioned as a crucial element of governance, often neglected in comparison to other forms of support, which has the potential to substantially contribute to the protection of civilians.

Does development deliver security?

Whether more and better development (a key goal and tool of current stabilisation operations) actually contributes to greater security is hotly debated between humanitarian organisations and other actors in stabilisation; as one participant noted, establishing causality between the two is difficult because of the number of variables involved.

One commentator suggested we may be “prisoners of our own conception of the state” in this sense, assuming that the delivery of services is something that legitimises government, whereas where the state has not routinely fulfilled this function, this may not be the case.

The focus on “development” ignores the negotiated process of state formation.

Areas of convergence: shared analysis and stronger evidence-base While the Conference called for clearer distinctions between the humanitarian and the stabilisation projects, there are at least two aspects around which the views of most participants converged.

First, there was a general consensus through the day that there is a need for much better contextual analysis of stabilisation. The role of NGOs in contributing to this analysis was not resolved; nevertheless they were acknowledged as often having some of the best analysis of socio-economic and political issues as a result of their historical and ongoing presence.

Developing cooperation protocols and ways of sharing information in this area such as predeployment briefings, in however limited a form, would have benefit. For instance, there might be occasions when aid agencies could contribute to the assessment stage of stabilisation missions by sharing the background to humanitarian assessments.

Second, the need for better evidence on what works and does not work in stabilisation operations was the most commonly recurring theme of the day. Evidence, or measures of effectiveness, is critical for informing policy in this new area of work, but is largely absent.

Several ways of gathering and disseminating this evidence were suggested, from conducting joint evaluations to a research and training centre for international interventions.

Concluding remarks: an alternative 3Ds approach?

Some of the recurrent themes discussed during the Conference suggest an alternative ‘3 Ds’: Difference (the need to understand and respect different objectives and roles); Dialogue (the need to communicate better); and Discernment (recognition that there are no easy answers and that each situation is unique).

In addition to the primary aim of the Conference, stimulating dialogue and sharing perspectives, several themes and ideas emerged that could be developed into further action for the NMCG and an enhanced dialogue in the future: > Evidence: knowledge of stabilisation processes remains limited and based on little evidence. There is need to commission more research, joint evaluations and more policy development, and possibly to develop a credible institution, outside the traditional

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NGO/military/government groupings, that can gather this and other evidence and disseminate it effectively to all actors. > Contested development and the importance of the rule of law in improving protection for civilians: there is a need for further opportunities for debate and understanding, and possibly research and evidence-gathering to inform policy. > Difference: how to further the understanding and acceptance of each other’s roles, in particular the need to preserve some space for pure ‘humanitarianism’. In contexts like Iraq and Afghanistan, it should be possible to agree that humanitarian action – saving and protecting the lives of civilians caught up in conflict – can and should be kept separate from the objectives of stabilisation operations. Perhaps we need to agree that there is value in diversity. As a panellist suggested, we should part with the idea that progress means greater integration – it may consist in achieving a clearer sense of separation. This is not a new discussion and there was a sense time has come for moving on to practical steps.

The NGO-Military Contact Group will continue to provide an active forum for dialogue and exchange of ideas, and the agenda for 2009/10 will include many of the elements outlined above.

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